C903 low-power, high-performance board

Citation

(2007), "C903 low-power, high-performance board", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 79 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2007.12779fad.004

C903 low-power, high-performance board

C903 low-power, high-performance board Aitech Defense Systems, Inc., an independent manufacturer of board and subsystem level products for harsh environment defense, aerospace and astronautics applications, has expanded its C900 series of rugged 3D CPCI single board computers (SBCs) with the new low-power, high- performance C903, available in both rugged air- or conduction-cooled versions. Powered by a 750FL PowerPC operating at 600 MHz, the new C903 provides superior MIPS-per- Watt performance in comparison to other higher power PowerPC processors (Figure 2).

Ideal applications for the C903 are said to include low-power process controllers, actuator/axis control, communication bridges and protocol converters, antenna position controllers and remotely piloted ground and airborne vehicles. Fire control processing, platform stabilization and mission control subsystems also benefit from the C903's functionality.

Figure 2 C903 low power PowerPC-based 3D CPCI SBC

The rugged and robust design of the C903 is said to provide exceptional performance, low-power and high- reliability over the industry's widest standard operating temperature ranges of from 255 to+858C. Generating all specialty power onboard, the thermally managed C903 accurately self-monitors its temperature and power dissipation through integral temperature sensors that provide performance monitoring and increased Mean Time Before Failure reliability in the harshest of applications. The large onboard memory arrays provide extensive volatile, non-volatile and mass memory resources. The C903 features up to 1 GB fast DDR SDRAM (with ECC protection) in addition to 128 MB of standalone User Flash. The board also incorporates 64 MB of dedicated Boot Flash and up to 2 GB of NAND Flash File memory for mass storage, with an added 128 KB of NVRAM for applications needing to quickly store critical variables such as relative spatial or absolute position.

Using the highly integrated Marvell MV64460 Discovery III system controller that features two separate and independent PCI-X bus interfaces and dual Gigabit Ethernet interfaces, the board can function as either the CPCI system controller or as a peripheral board. As the system controller, the C903 supports up to seven additional cards on the backplane, expanding the SBC's functionality to include clock, arbitration and interrupt capabilities.

The board's four 32 bit timers provide high-resolution timing functionality, as well as chaining for long interval counting applications. Its real time clock (RTC), which accurately keeps the date and time, is backed up by a large SuperCap capacitor rather than unreliable batteries for long-term data storage and accurate timekeeping. Fixed, programmable and windowed avionics watchdog timers work in tandem to quickly identify time-out events, such as a hung system or the improper execution of a coding sequence, enabling efficient system monitoring.

The C903 also claims the industry's largest and widest array of I/O capabilities, including two independent Gigabit Ethernet ports, two high-speed serial communications ports, two USB 2.0 ports and up to eight general-purpose discrete I/O channels. An industry standard PMC slot enables expanded I/O functionality through user-defined modules added to the board.

Equipped with extensive software packages, the C903 claims extreme ease of use and easy integration. In addition to the JTAG/COP interface for debugging and development purposes, the board comes with test and diagnostic firmware that includes boot software, an AIMon monitor/debugger tool, an AIDiag diagnostic tool and BIT. BSPs with drivers for all onboard resources are readily available for WindRiver VxWorks and Green Hills Integrity.

The C903 air-cooled and conduction-cooled versions adhere to PICMG 2.0 R3.0 and ANSI/VITA 30.1-1991 specifications, respectively. The custom metal thermal/heat management frame of the conduction- cooled board provides integral heat dissipation as well as excellent rigidity and shock resistance.

Details available from: Aitech Defense Systems, Inc., Tel:+1 888 248 3248, Fax:+1 888 718 9787, E-mail sales@rugqed.com, web site: www.rugged.com